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I find I've become fascinated with the subgenre of books criticizing conservative political commentators. It began when I read Al Franken's Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them; and since then, I've plowed through several extended diatribes against far-right media types, particularly Ann Coulter. There seems to be a whole mini-industry of anti-Coulter books, most of which play off of the title of her most recent screed, Godless; I've read books about her called Soulless and Brainless, and I have no doubt that some wag who's read her interviews and seen her complaints about how much trouble she has finding a date will eventually publish a book called Sexless. xp

Most of the time, I find myself nodding in agreement with the arguments the authors of these books make; and that's exactly the problem. These books are preaching to the converted: no one who isn't already a die-hard liberal will be convinced by the arguments made in their pages. While I find it surreal that anyone could believe the lies perpetrated by the Bush administration, and that anyone could find any intellectual worth in such apologists as Coulter or O'Reilly, there's nothing in these books that would convince right-wingers to change their minds. Instead, the left has adopted the tactics of its ideological opponents-- rather than establishing a serious argument, the majority of authors who've followed in Franken's footsteps have resorted to the same sort of mudslinging and unsubstantiated attacks as the people they're criticizing. There's a strange sort of irony in how Franken, the only comedian of the bunch, actually musters more documentation and factual support for his positions than the alleged professionals.

I started thinking about this again because of a book by defense lawyer Gerry Spence, which carries the polite, non-confrontational title Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps Of Power. Again, there's some irony at work; Spence decries the "culture of hate" perpetrated by the likes of Coulter, O'Reilly, and Nancy Grace, but tries to have his cake and eat it too with that insanely vicious title. (It's also a little hard to take the man who defended Ruby Ridge shooter Randy Weaver seriously as a left-wing Democrat.) At least Spence has the decency to declare his agenda from the beginning; he writes in his introduction, "This is not meant to be a scholarly treatise but a polemic", and so it is. Unfortunately, Spence's vehemence means his message has little chance of resonating beyond a limited, already left-thinking audience. It also leads him into moments of incoherence that you'd expect an editor to clean up-- the chapter on talk-radio host Laura Ingraham strays so far off course as to be nearly incomprehensible. There's plenty of truth to be found in what Spence says; but since he lacks Franken's humor, and doesn't possess any background in journalism that might help him mold his arguments into a more palatable form, the result is off-putting even to someone who largely shares his political views.

My reaction to Spence's book is similar to how I felt when I read S.T. Joshi's The Angry Right a few months ago: there are valid points here, but the way liberals have so willingly adopted the smear-campaign tactics of their opponents makes them a lot more difficult to take seriously. There's no need for these authors to stoop to personal attacks and shouting and name-calling; if they want to demonstrate their superiority to the neocons, they should stick to their guns and present a serious argument, a reasoned debate, rather than deciding they need to follow the same path as their opponents.